West (History Interrupted Book 1) (6 page)

“Yes. Your father’s lands borders theirs.”

“Great. We can go visit.”

Nell paused in her chores of straightening my room. “Miss Josie, that would not be appropriate.”

“Because …” I waited and sipped my tea.

“They’re savages and you are a gentlewoman.”

Good lesson.
“But if we’re neighbors, doesn’t Father talk to them?”

“Not often.” Nell began brushing my hair with a thick brush. “Don’t you get it in your mind to upset your father by asking him to visit the Indians. He’s delicate, Miss Josie.”

“I won’t.” I grimaced. She didn’t bother to pluck out the knots in my curls but was raking through them. “What do you think happened to … uh, me during the time I was gone?”

Nell’s strokes paused for a moment before they began again. “It’s not possible for an un-chaperoned, unwed girl with your beauty to survive away from her father’s house for long this side of the Mississippi, especially with so many savages taking slaves and the cavalry conscripting anyone they deem lost. There’s no real law out here, either,” she replied. “I reckon you went east like you always said you would and got yourself knocked about bad.”

“It sounds like quite an adventure.”

“None of your jests Miss Josie. A woman is safe in her father’s home and her husband’s. Nowhere else in this godforsaken Indian Territory. This isn’t Boston.”

I considered the words, not certain why they confused me so much. Maybe because my life was so different. It was intriguing to witness firsthand – yet unsettling as well.

“What if John … Father … doesn’t want me here?” I ventured. “Will my appearance upset his health?”

“Nonsense, child. You came back … different, I’ll admit, but he has never stopped waiting for you. He will love you as he always has,” Nell said. “You leaving broke him. He’s a different man, Miss Josie. He won’t be angry no more about your fiancé and he won’t force you into a new marriage.”

Seated in a stranger’s house with a woman who thought me someone else brushing my hair, I felt guilty for a moment, like what I was doing – pretending to be someone I wasn’t – was somehow wrong. If Carter sent me back here, he had a reason. I didn’t think he’d ask me to do something that was bad, yet I couldn’t help thinking the people of this house would be sad when I left.

“That’s good,” I said. As soon as John saw me, he’d know. A nanny might be fooled, but I didn’t think a father was going to be convinced a stranger was his daughter, no matter how much I resembled the real Josie.

Nell finished brushing and twisting my hair into an elaborate bun on top of my head before she went to the wardrobe.

I glanced down at my phone and saw a message from Carter.

OMG! Of all the things you could send me pics of, you chose THAT?

It took effort not to laugh. Nell already thought there was something wrong with me for running away. I tucked the phone in a pocket in the gown and gazed around me, amazed at the relative comfort of the room compared to the near squalor of the bedrooms I saw on the tour at Tombstone. John was wealthy – a pleasant surprise I’d thank Carter for later.

My thoughts turned to my mission. How did I find the two men I sought in a world without so much as a phone book, let alone the internet? Did I go door to door until someone recognized the name? Or wait for the brain chips to activate?

Nell knelt in front of me with a pair of leather booties. I lifted my feet one by one and placed them in the boots.

“There,” she said and sat back, satisfied. “Now, we must meet your father.”

I rose - and almost fell. Lightheaded from the corset, headachy from unexpected brain surgery, I braced myself against the table.

“Nell, I can’t breathe!” I gasped. “You gotta loosen that thing.”

“You must be attired in the proper style,” Nell said. “You will adjust.”

This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of.

I struggled to catch my breath then straightened. It took a moment for me to find balance. “All right. I’m ready.”

Nell was smiling, her eyes filled with tears. “Welcome back, Miss Josie. I’ve missed you dearly,” she said.

Guilt stirred once more. I bit my tongue and forced a smile. I had to play along. If I hurt these people, it wasn’t on purpose. I was here for a very good cause: to save a million lives.

Except I had no idea where to start or even if I landed in the right place to make a difference.

I trailed my governess out of my room. Nell was speaking quietly about the people who lived in the house, as if to remind me. I tried to listen but wasn’t able to concentrate, instead taking in my surroundings with curiosity. I was in my own wing of a two-story house that appeared to be quite large.

A sweeping stairwell led to the first floor and the front door, which was flanked by two massive rooms with expensive, period furniture, including a piano and a harp.

At least my fake-daddy is rich,
I thought. Portraits of stern men lined the wide corridor on the main floor, which was edged by closed doors. Judging by the paintings, my father was going to be a grave, bearded man who looked ready to order my beheading.

“Oh!” Nell exclaimed suddenly, stopping. “You cannot see your father for the first time if you aren’t wearing the necklace he bought you on your last birthday.” She pulled a small box from the depths of her apron and opened it.

“Wow,” I breathed.

The black choker contained an emerald the size of my thumb.

Nell put it on with steady fingers, and I touched it. That would definitely pay off my student debt.

I’m going to hell for that thought.
My goal had to be to leave as small of an indent on these people and this time period as possible. I definitely wasn’t going to steal from them.

We stopped in a doorway to a masculine study that smelled of pipe smoke.

“He must be with the savages still,” Nell said, a note of disapproval in her voice.

“The ones that found me?” I asked.

“Yes. They brought you to us last night.”

“Do you know from what direction?” I asked quickly, heartbeat quickening.

“You were on their land.” Nell shrugged. “Wait here. I’ll fetch him.”

“Shouldn’t I thank them?”

Nell faced me, startled. I had the sense I had said something wrong without knowing what exactly.

“It would not be appropriate,” Nell said finally. “Wait here, Miss Josie.”

Bullshit.
I waited for her to disappear out the door then followed, easing the heavy wooden door open and closed behind me. The scent of wood burning and horses reached me. My gaze swept over a corral with three horses, multiple barns of ranging sizes and a carriage parked nearby.

Nell hurried towards a tall, bearded man with a cane and a top hat who stood with two men wearing faded badges on their vests. Two Native Americans hung back from them.

I started towards the group, wanting to know from what direction they’d brought me and the distance, so I was able to find my way back. Whether or not it mattered, I wasn’t certain. But I woke up in the past in that spot; it held some sort of significance. Maybe it was where Carter would pull me back to the future. At the very least, I wanted to grab a couple chunks of the moldavite before returning.

Pain shot through my head once more. I touched it with one hand, not wanting to stop and nurse it. Sunspots appeared, and I shook my head. The reminder of my involuntary brain surgery irked me. I hoped the chips did what Carter said they would. Not one to bear grudges, I decided the socially awkward man would benefit from a couple pieces of advice about how to kidnap and send people back in time.

My step slowed when one of the men noticed me. If his nose had been less crooked, his jaw straight and his bushy eyebrows trimmed, he might pass as rugged. But the combination, along with the amount of dirt on his exposed skin rendered him merely ugly. His eyes were brown, not the gorgeous green I had seen last night.

“Josie?” The slightly hoarse voice of the tall, bearded man drew my attention away from the scowling lawman. “It’s really you!”

There was no sternness in the man’s face. His age was hard to judge. His hair was pure white and the wrinkles around his eyes deep, but his eyes youthful and blue. I didn’t think he was over fifty, though the hard living west of the Mississippi had aged him much faster. His face lit up like it was the best day of his life.

“Hi, Father,” I said awkwardly with a glance at Nell. I had never said those words in my life.

Nell was crying and smiling.

Did I curtsey? Bow? Grovel? I resisted the urge to fidget, once again feeling like I had entered someone else’s dream.

To my surprise, the elderly man swept me up in a tight hug. Combined with my corset, I was rendered momentarily unable to breathe and fought to keep from pushing him away. His slender form was gaunt, nothing but skin and bones beneath the pressed suit. He smelled of pipe smoke and sweat.

“You look like your mother.” Tears shone in his eyes, and he kissed my forehead, taking my cheeks.

“Thank you,” I murmured. His look was not something I would ever forget. The pure, selfless joy of a parent over his child, aimed at
me.
That had never happened. For a moment, my amusement at this world, and the sense it wasn’t real, trembled.

I was pleased that Carter dropped me off somewhere safe. But I couldn’t help thinking why here? Where my departure was going to break the hearts of two good people who truly believed me to be someone I wasn’t? I was going to save so many lives. Maybe hurting two people shouldn’t matter, but it did.

John’s smile grew even wider, and part of my heart melted. He was truly happy to see me. He saw no difference between his real daughter and me, and I was suddenly envious of how much he loved his Josie. I had rarely experienced a major holiday where I didn’t think about my parents and certainly missed them.

His features were so happy, his eyes shining. His joy was contagious, and I yearned for it to be real and directed at me. The kind man before me made me wish I had known my father, who died when I was two.

“It’s um, good to be home,” I added more softly, touched by his emotion, even if it was misdirected. “I wore your favorite dress.”

“Matches your eyes.”

I forced a smile, guilt drifting through me.

“I was thanking the sheriff who returned you to me,” John said, moving away to face the two men near him and the Native Americans behind them.

Stoic and stone-faced, the lawmen appeared hard to read. A Native American in his early thirties stood a short distance away, as unfriendly as the lawmen, while his teenage companion was a couple feet back holding the reins of four horses.

“Ma’am, I’d like to speak to you about your whereabouts the past year,” the sheriff said.

My gaze fell to the man who had rescued me – and stuck. Tall, lean, with the striking green eyes, rugged features, high cheekbones, a strong jaw and a face almost as dark as the natives’, he was closer to my age than John’s. His clothing was worn, dusty and stitched in multiple places, his boots scuffed and the star-shaped sheriff’s badge on his chest like something I had seen out of a western movie.

His eyes, however, were pinned to me as if he already knew my story was bogus. Carter had vaguely warned me about
the others
I might encounter without defining who they were.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose in mild alarm at the fear I had been figured out on day one. I wasn’t certain what to say, not with the rugged cowboy and his green gaze distracting me. The sense I had gotten last night, that he was hiding something about how he knew to find me in the crater, returned.

It’s not possible, though.

“When she is rested, Sheriff,” my faux-father said. “You will not upset my daughter so soon after her return.”

“Of course not, Mr. John,” the sheriff said. “The Indians convey their congratulations at having your daughter returned.”

“They did what the sheriff wasn’t able to,” John said to me. “They found you when I thought you were gone forever.”

“Amazing,” I agreed. “Thank you all.” This I directed at the Indians hanging back behind the sheriff.

Suddenly, everyone was looking at me hard.

“Why, Josie. Wherever did you learn Indian?” John asked.

My brow furrowed.

“She did not know our tongue last night,” the older Native American said with a frown.

“Not here,” the sheriff replied to the restless native. “You must consult with the shaman over what you found.”

“What you found?” I asked, puzzled. “Me?”

“You really understand us.” The sheriff’s features appeared even more severe.

Shit. It all sounds like English to me.
I clamped my mouth shut, suspecting by their uneasy looks that I wasn’t supposed to know Native American but kind of grateful one of the microchips in my brain was working.

“We are done here,” the sheriff said. “I expect to see you in town soon to talk, ma’am.”

It didn’t sound like the conversation was going to be a good one. My rescuer wasn’t pleased about seeing me healthy and on my feet despite pulling me out of the crater and giving me a coat. The lawmen tipped their hats to my faux-father and turned away.

“Wait!” I called, eyes on the Native American. “Can you tell me where you found me? Just the direction. That’s it.”

The native exchanged a look with the sheriff.

“West,” he said at last.

I sensed I had managed to piss him off somehow and watched them go to their horses.

“What did you say, my daughter?” John asked.

“Just uh … thanked them,” I replied. “You cannot understand them?”

He chuckled. “You always did regale me with jests.” He started towards the house. “We have much to discuss, Josie!”

I watched the men who found me ride away towards the west. It was possible that the sheriff was suspicious and shuttered towards everyone. The pioneers had a rough life, from what I recalled. They had no driver’s licenses or biometric identification systems here, either. It wasn’t like he was able to run my fingerprints to verify I was their Josie.